‘“Mark has come in and played well,” Head Coach Lindy Ruff said of the 6-foot-3 forward. “You’re always going to get instant pop out of a player you bring up. There is the exciting of getting up, there is the excitement of playing. “He uses his size but he gets [to the net]. He gets inside the D and he gets to the goaltender. That’s more about how goals are going to be scored.”’

‘“He’s a big body with a great shot who can get pucks to the net,” coach Lindy Ruff said. “He’ll go to the front of the net and hang tough and he’s been good on their power play. With Ales and Tim out, it’s a weapon we can try to utilize.”’

‘The top prospect I saw the most was a centre with Oshawa, Dave Andreychuk. I reported he had a good shot, was a bad skater and was slow coming back. Andreychuk was drafted in the first round by Buffalo and played over 1,900 NHL games and scored more than 680 goals. Not bad for a bad skater!’

‘The policy might be well-intentioned, but it makes no sense in this situation. Lindy Ruff didn’t want to announce the specific nature of the injury out of fears that when he returned, Connolly would be targeted. But he’s already a target, a wounded gazelle on a Serengeti Plain full of ruthless predators.’

‘But a night after former teammate Martin Biron made 40 saves in a shutout, the Sabres again ran into a hot goalie. MacDonald, making his 10th straight start in place of the injured Rick DiPietro, avenged an earlier start this season in which he allowed all seven goals in a 7-1 loss to the Sabres on Long Island. He made 30 saves over the first two periods.’

‘”I don’t know what’s going on,” Mancari said. “We didn’t have the good start that we wanted. We weren’t moving our legs, we weren’t creating chances. In the second period I thought we were better, in the third it kind of tailed off again.”‘